


What Mab Has Joined Together

by Medie



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Other, trope bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I didn't know what Lea and Mab were after, but I knew it had to be good. They'd made a deal with my mother, vowed my protection, and now they were handing those duties over to a human?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Mab Has Joined Together

**Author's Note:**

> shameless little cracky AU written for the Trope Bingo Square Trust and Vows

I wasn't even born when my mother bargained my future away. 

I'd never known her, my few stories had come from my faerie guardians, but I knew they loved her and I knew that wasn't good.

The Winter Court was no place for a child to grow up. I saw and did things that no child should ever see or do. I knew that was wrong, but there was no changing it. It simply was the way things were in the courts and one might as well try arguing with the sun not to shine. 

I didn't blame my mother then or now. She struck the bargain to protect me if she and my father couldn't. The Leanansidhe gave her word that she would see me safe and, when my parents died, there was nothing else that she could do but spirit me away into the Winter Court. All the way to Arctis Tor where the Winter Queen made her home.

Once a faerie strikes a deal, they never break it. No matter how twisted the Leanansidhe's execution of her promise was mattered little. She had promised and she would see it through. 

It wasn't all bad anyway. I learned things about magic from my godmother than no mortal wizard would have known. I commanded ice magic as easily as I did fire (which I preferred, though I would never tell her such) and I knew, should push come to shove, I could protect myself nearly as well as the Leanansidhe protected me. 

I loved her, in a way, but the day she summoned me to her side and I found mortals waiting with her...

I was relieved.

I didn't know it then, didn't understand really, but I knew that I would be leaving Arctis Tor for the first time in years. 

Lea's guests were men; tall and probably imposing among their own. In the shining hall of my godmother's reception room, they didn't seem quite that intimidating, but no mortal did in the heart of Winter. Allowing for that, I found them interesting. One seemed the vassal of the other, keeping behind him, broad and watchful. The other was slim, dark-haired with a hint of silver at his temples, and he carried the faintest hint of power. He looked around him the way the Queen did when she entered a room and that, more than anything, made me wary. 

Anyone that reminded me of Mab was to be watched. 

They weren't enchanted or enslaved. The Leanansidhe was treating them as guests and bade me forward with a smile that was almost warm. 

That's when I understood.

Lea had promised my mother she would protect me. She would ensure my safety as best she could; whether that meant turning me into one of her hounds or controlling every single detail of my existence. Right down to the person I married.

I had the strongest suspicion I was being introduced to my soon-to-be intended. 

I wasn't wrong. 

John Marcone was his name and he lived in the city of Chicago. I'd passed through there a few times, moving through the ways, never lingering long, but that would change it seemed.

He seemed nice enough, but he was brokering deals with Mab through my godmother. The 'nice' didn't tend to do well among the Sidhe. Too tender and tasty a morsel for the to pass up for long. I've ever ever qualified for nice, not even I'm wisely minding my p's and q's around Lea, so I've managed fine.

At least, I had until now.

Mab was getting something out of this, I knew that, but I couldn't imagine what. Marcone was human, mortal, and the Sidhe cared nothing for human money or human influence. He couldn't buy their favor and I didn't see what he could bargain with.

I didn't know what Lea and Mab were after, but I knew it had to be good. They'd made a deal with my mother, vowed my protection, and now they were handing those duties over to a human? 

They were getting something _really_ good and it was only a matter of time until I found out what it was.

In the meantime, whatever else I didn't know, I knew three things:  
1) This was going to be interesting.  
2) I was getting out of here.  
3) God, I missed Burger King.

Did they do weddings?


End file.
